University of Wisconsin Press, 2006 eISBN: 978-0-299-21633-7 | Cloth: 978-0-299-21630-6 | Paper: 978-0-299-21634-4 Library of Congress Classification PR6065.B7Z96 2006 Dewey Decimal Classification 823.914
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Since the 1960 publication of her first novel, The Country Girls, award-winning Irish writer Edna O'Brien has been both celebrated and maligned. Praised for her lyrical prose and vivid female characters and attacked for her frank treatment of sexuality and alleged sensationalism, O'Brien and her work seem always to spawn controversy, including the past banning in Ireland of several of her works. O'Brien's attention to "women's" concerns such as sex, romance, marriage, and childbirth has often relegated her to critical neglect at best and, at worst, outright contempt. This essay collection promises to be a long overdue critical reevaluation and exciting rediscovery of her oeuvre. Wild Colonial Girl situates O'Brien in Irish contexts that allow for an appraisal of her significant contribution to a specifically Irish women's literary tradition while attesting to the potency of writing against patriarchal conventions. Each chapter's clear and detailed readings of O'Brien's fiction build a convincing case for her literary, political, and cultural importance, providing an invaluable critical guide for an enriched appreciation of O'Brien and her work.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Lisa Colletta is assistant professor of English at Babson College. She is the author of Dark Humor and Social Satire in the Modern British Novel and the editor of Kathleen and Christopher: Christopher Isherwood's Letters to His Mother. Maureen O'Connor teaches English at the National University of Ireland, Galway.
REVIEWS
"Readers of Edna O'Brien's lyrical fiction can discover or revisit in Wild Colonial Girl the favorites—Kate and Baba, the mother and the Virgin Mary, Sister Imelda, ancient and modern Ireland, Breege and the Irish Revolutionary soldier—all in a search for selfhood amid sexual conflict, ambient guilt, and social paradoxes. Irish author Edna O'Brien has long merited this breakthrough scholarly study."—Grace Eckley, editor of Newstead
TABLE OF CONTENTS
<table of contents, p. v/vii/ix>
Contents
Acknowledgements 000
Introduction 000
Maureen O'Connor
Lisa Colletta
"In the Name of the Mother . . .": Reading and Revision in Edna O'Brien's Country Girls Trilogy
and Epilogue 000
Kristine Byron
"Hysterical Hooliganism. . . " 000
Helen Thompson
Edna O'Brien's 'Love Objects' 000
Rebecca Pelan
Edna O'Brien and the Lives of James Joyce 000
Michael Patrick Gillespie
Godot Land. . . 'Sister Imelda' 000
Wanda Balzano
Blurring Boundaries. . . House of Splendid Isolation 000
Danine Farquharson
Bernice Schrank
One the Side of Life. . . 000
Sophia Hillan
Contributors 000
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.